CorelDRAW Help | Preview drawings

Preview drawings

You can preview a drawing to see how it will look when printed or exported. When you preview a drawing, only the objects on the drawing page and in the immediate area of the drawing window are displayed, and you can see all layers that are set to print in the Objects docker. If you want a closer look at specific objects in a drawing, you can select and preview them. When you preview selected objects, the rest of the drawing is hidden.

Before you preview a drawing, you can specify the preview mode. The preview mode affects the speed with which your preview appears as well as the amount of detail displayed in the drawing window.

By default, the borders of a page are displayed in the drawing window, but you can hide them at any time. If a drawing is intended for print, you can display the area that will actually print as well as the bleed, the part of the drawing that extends beyond the page border. Bleeds are useful when a drawing contains a color page background or objects that are positioned on the page border. Bleeds ensure that no white space appears between the edges of a drawing and the edge of the paper after the printer cuts, binds, and trims the document.

To preview a drawing

• Click View

Full-screen Preview.

Click anywhere on the screen, or press any key, to return to the application window.

You can press Page up and Page down to preview pages in a multipage drawing.

To preview selected objects

1 Select the objects.

2 Click View

Preview Selected Only.

Click anywhere on the screen, or press any key, to return to the application window.

If Preview selected only mode is enabled and no objects are selected, Full-screen preview displays a blank screen.

To choose a full-screen preview mode

1 Click Tools

Options

CorelDRAW.

2 In the left pane of the dialog box that appears, click Display.

3 In the Full-screen preview area, enable one of the following options:

• Use normal view — Drawings appear without PostScript fills or high‑resolution bitmaps, and no anti-aliasing is used.

• Use enhanced view — Drawings appear with PostScript fills, and anti-aliasing is used to sharpen the display of the drawings.

To set the page display

1 Click Layout

Document Options.

2 In the left pane of the dialog box that appears, click Page Size.

3 Enable or disable the following check boxes:

• Show page border — shows or hides page borders

• Show bleed area — shows or hides the area of the drawing extending beyond the page border. To change the bleed area, type a value in the Bleed box.

When preparing a drawing for commercial printing, you may also need to set a bleed limit. For more information, see To set a bleed limit.

You can also click View Page Page border, or View Page Bleed.

You can display the printable area of a drawing by clicking View Page Printable area. The printable area is usually indicated by two dotted lines inside or around the page, depending on the current printer settings. One outline indicates the area that can be printed on the current printer; the other outline indicates the paper size that your printer is set to use.